


Again and Again

by Cavalierious



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Boys In Love, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Divine Pulse Angst (Fire Emblem), Divine Pulse Deaths (Fire Emblem), Happy Ending, I swear it, M/M, Mentions of death but no one stays dead, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26665933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cavalierious/pseuds/Cavalierious
Summary: One minute Felix is laying in a pool of his blood and the next he’s standing knee-deep in mud, fingers curled tightly around his sword in a two-handed grip.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	Again and Again

**Author's Note:**

> Dar Six of Sylvix Week: Second Chances
> 
> I didn't tag major character death, mostly because the death lasts for barely a minute. That being said, there are brief mentions of death and slightly graphic violence. Nothing that is long-lasting or permanent.

~~Second chances~~ / Confessions / Reincarnation AU

* * *

One minute Felix is laying in a pool of his blood and the next he’s standing knee-deep in mud, fingers curled tightly around his sword in a two-handed grip. 

He blinks. He hurts. He doesn’t feel right. The hurt ebbs and flows, feeling more like a distant pain than a current one, clawing deep into his ribs and blooming outwards. When he looks, there’s nothing there, only his soggy and sweaty, dirt-stained tunic. Free of rips. Free of harm. 

Free of blood.

Felix knows that he’d been dying, he remembers the radiating heat of his blood surging through his veins, trying to save him. And he remembers the slow cooldown as that raging tide lessened and lessened until it was lifeless in his veins. 

He remembers the cold grip of death. He doesn’t remember the aftermath. 

It doesn’t make sense, he thinks with a frown. Felix clearly hadn’t died, he’s right here on the battlefield, standing dumbly as a whispering memory is slowly lost and forgotten. 

“Felix!” Felix turns to find Byleth there, arm raised and hand crackling with magic. An unfamiliar spell, but the professor always has a new trick up his sleeve. It’s nothing new, even if it makes Felix pause. Wondering. Concerned. 

The green glow in Byleth’s hand looks eerily familiar. That unknown feeling ebbs again, pulsing as it fades and fades even more. Felix wonders why he’s standing there, staring off like a fool. 

“Are you alright?” Byleth yells hand cupped around his mouth. Felix can barely hear him over the din and roar of the battlefield, but he just barely makes it out.

“I’m fine,” yells Felix. But his voice is rough and scratchy like he hasn’t used it in a decade. Or like he’d screamed a lot. Which he hasn’t. Felix frowns. 

Byleth is close enough to see Felix’s hesitation. The professor’s mouth curls into a grimace and he opens his mouth once more. “Felix--”

“Sylvain,” says Felix, suddenly, feeling renewed purpose rise within him. It’s not a new feeling, it feels oddly familiar. But it comes from nowhere. There is no explanation for it. “Where is--” Felix pauses, trying to form his words. “There’s something wrong. Something’s going to happen.” Felix knows it, he feels it in his bones, he’s done this before.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” says Byleth. He’s closer now, having covered the distance between them. “It’s not too late anymore.”

Felix cocks his head to the side as he regards the professor. “I was dead,” says Felix. Not a question, but a statement. “I was--”

“You can fix it,” says Byleth simply. “He’s over the ridge, that way. He’ll be fine for a few moments, but you don’t have long to get over there. Go.”

“I was…” Felix pauses again, the words suddenly lost. His head hurts. Why’s he standing in the middle of the field doing nothing? Then he notices Byleth to his left. “Professor,” says Felix. “What are you doing here?” 

“Sylvain’s to the north,” says Byleth, even and patient. Like he’s said this one hundred times before. “Just past the ridge. He needs your help.”

Felix doesn’t need to be told twice. Sylvain’s a fool, an insufferable dolt, but he’s _Felix’s_ insufferable fool and if he dies, then there’s no point in surviving this damn war. 

Felix runs, feet catching in the mud, slogging through the marsh, climbing over bodies. To the north and over the ridge, to where Sylvain is. Always to where Sylvain is. Felix is like a moth to a flame, he cannot _not_ follow, he cannot be without. Losing Sylvain would be like losing oxygen; he’s the only thing that Felix has left that’s worth a damn.

There’s a lancing pain that blooms through his side. At first, he doesn’t quite register what is happening, but then it’s searing agony. Felix looks down to find a blade slotted between his ribs. He falls to the ground. Blood bubbles up and out. 

He’s drowning, actually drowning this time. 

“Our promise,” says Felix with a sob, because he’s dying without Sylvain and that just won’t do. His blood burns for a moment and then he’s cold. And then he’s sleepy, eyes tugging closed. Felix wants to drift away, just drift… 

Felix is standing knee-deep in the mud, fingers curled tightly around his sword in a two-handed grip. Byleth’s got a warm hand wrapped around his bicep as he helps Felix steady himself when he sways, pitching to the side like a newborn foal who doesn’t yet know how to stand. 

Felix feels wrong, the why just on the tip of his tongue. But he doesn’t know what it is. He turns to Byleth and the first thing that he says is, “Our promise.” It’s the only thing that his mind can focus on.

Byleth blinks back at him, but he doesn’t seem surprised, even if Felix is. 

“There’s still time,” says Byleth. “You’ve got a second chance.” 

Felix has the distinct, guttural feeling that this isn’t his second chance, it’s his fourth or fifth or sixth. It’s something recognizable, yet not at all. He knows the familiar motions, but it doesn’t make sense. Felix’s head swims as he hurts. But when he looks at his side, there’s nothing there, only the dingy, mud-stained cotton of his tunic. 

“Sylvain’s just over the ridge to the north,” says Byleth. The words seem familiar and well-practiced. The professor lets him go once he feels like Felix can stand on his own. “You can still make it there.”

Felix runs, because Sylvain’s his anchor and he’s a ship, and they can’t be without each other. They’d made that promise as children and they’ve managed to keep it yet. He crests the ridge just in time to cut down a bowman, bow pulled taught, and just about to loose an arrow. And just like that, things feel right again. 

“Felix,” says Sylvain from atop his horse, breathing heavy and wiping at his sweaty brow. The damn idiot isn’t paying attention to the fight about them and Felix nearly snaps. Nearly. 

“Back to it,” says Felix with a huff. “I haven’t died over and over trying to save your damn life only for you to continue being an idiot. Pay attention!” 

They both pause at his words, and then Sylvain says, “What do you mean _died over and over?”_

Felix doesn’t know, he _doesn’t know_ , but there’s a burning in his chest, and his palms are sweating and the words had seemed right in the moment that he'd said them. But now everything seems wrong and Felix feels like he’s going to vomit. 

There’s another voice from behind them. “I need you back out there,” yells Byleth, striking down an armored unit with the white-hot crack of Ragnarok at his fingertips. 

“Our promise,” says Felix to Sylvain, unsure why the thought is stuck in his throat. Sylvain’s usually the one waxing poetically about their childhood covenant. 

But, Felix can’t shake it. 

Sylvain looks down at him, a soft smile spreading across his mouth. “Never forgotten,” says Sylvain, reaching out. Felix grabs his hand and they just hold them there. Byleth watches unimpressed. 

“Go,” says Felix, pushing him away. “And watch yourself. I’m tired of fixing your mistakes.”

Sylvain huffs, before turning his horse and trotting off into the fight. 

“Fixing his mistakes,” muses Byleth. 

“It’s Sylvain,” says Felix. “It’s all I ever do, I swear.”

“Right,” says Byleth. Felix waits for him to expand on the thought, but the professor doesn’t. Byleth looks out over the field for a moment and then says, “Keep to the right. Sylvain will be fine this time around.”

Felix listens at first because Byleth’s never wrong. That nags at him, as it often does, but he doesn’t question it. Felix spits to the ground next to him before adjusting his grip on the sword, then he runs back into the battle. 

In the end, he doesn’t keep to the right because Felix is a lone wolf, who lives and dies by his sword whether everyone else wants him to or not. Sylvain sees him out of the corner of his eye, throwing himself off of his horse in a drastic maneuver. 

Felix lives, but Sylvain’s hit by a raging bolt of Thoron. He goes down and down and down. 

Byleth watches and he sighs before there’s a soft green glow around his hands. 

“What a day,” he murmurs before letting it loose. 

#

One minute, Sylvain’s cheek is hitting the ground with a smack, his body electrified like a live wire, and the next he’s standing knee-deep in the mud, fingers curled tightly around the Lance of Ruin in a two-handed grip. It’s heavy in his hands and he can feel the soft pulsing as it pulls at him. 

He’s dazed, he sways on sea legs, nothing feels right and his mind is like a fog. What’s he doing there?

“Felix,” says Sylvain, the first lucid thought he can form. 

Byleth’s already there by his side, helping him stand straight and find his footing. “He went left when I told him to go right. Get over there and save his ass. I can’t keep doing this.”

Sylvain doesn’t ask Byleth what he means, all he hears is that Felix is in trouble. He needs to save him, because if Felix dies there’s nothing left for him anymore. It’s a burning, yearning need that stokes the fires of his heart. 

“Right,” says Sylvain. “Right, Felix needs help.” 

Sylvain runs and runs and runs. Sylvain saves Felix. Felix is angry but alive. They win their skirmish, the enemy slinking off and the Blue Lions cheer in response. 

#

Byleth is tired, but then he sees Sylvain pull Felix close, fingers slipping into his grimy hair, leaning over and whispering soft words into his ear, he knows that it’s a job well done. 

He’s saved everyone more times than he can count, but Sylvain and Felix are infuriatingly stubborn and require most of his attention due to their combined recklessness. He’s learned a lot from them, though. He’s learned what love looks like and that it’s worth it to risk everything. 

Byleth sighs, rubbing at his tired eyes as he retreats to his tent. 

Tomorrow’s another day of second-chances. 

**Author's Note:**

> I made a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/_Cavalierious_) specifically to cater to the fact I've started writing again.


End file.
